Edinburgh, Cambridge, and in between, until there was seldom even
standing room in the splendid hall. Notably, the audiences were young.
The audiences increased until they were turning many away.
Said the Earl of Crawford, leaning over toward me on the platform—'What
is this, Mr. Wright? The board has never seen anything like this before.'
I said, * Your lordship, I can't imagine/
That same Lord, the evening on which I had taken perhaps too gloomy
a view of the cultural state of things in general, got up and remarked that
the proceedings had rather puzzled him. He said he felt somewhat in the
position of Sandy at the funeral being held in the old Scotch churchyard.
Sandy, curious to see what was going on, got too close to the edge of the
grave, slipped and fell in, barking both shins on the coffin. Next day the
local paper, commenting on the funeral, said, The unfortunate incident
cast a gloom over the entire proceedings.'
And the good-natured laugh was on the 'lecturer'.
There was an affable Lord in the chair always. There is no better nor
more competent company on earth than the English gentleman, but one
or two of the M.P. Lords who came over to preside were, unlike the Earl,
'rather a bore, don't you know', Olgivanna was present at all the lectures
and many would ask her if it was true that my speaking was entirely
spontaneous—not because it didn't seem so, but because it did seem so
spontaneous. She assured them it was so: perfectly spontaneous. During
post-mortem discussions of the lectures many interesting things were
heard. One ponderous Duchess next seat to a friend of mine raised her
lorgnette and asked, 'Who is this charlatan from Texas who comes way
over here to talk us down?'
lovanna was castle-crazy but was disappointed so much by the adding
and patching that didn't 'belong'. She found a companion in John Gloag's
little daughter who took her about. She was particularly offended by Sir
Christopher Wren's additions because they so invariably ignored the
original work as to be really not additions but subtractions. Nor could she
reconcile the plumbing hanging over or on or showing under the ancient
dignity of the outside walls. No amount of explaining squared the facts
with budding Romance. She loved the Tower—But was eager to be on the
trail of Frangois Villon in Paris.
On the whole I who have the most intelligent of audiences have never
had such a high level of intelligence and fine character in the audience as
in London—nor such awareness and purposeful heckling, I always enjoy
a, heckling, and so does a British audience, I won't quote any of the many
evidences of this because an old court reporter was present and got the
whole thing down, so accurately that for once in my life there was little to
correct in the copy he presented. The tasteful book, heckling and all,
edited by Secretary of the Royal Institute, Carter, came out as I have said,
when London was raided, bombs exploding, and the walls of London
falling or in ruins,
2G 465 *.L.W,